I know indeed what evil I intend to do,
but stronger than all my afterthoughts is my fury,
fury that brings upon mortals the greatest evils.
- Euripides
From time to time, I try to step back and look around, the better to get a sense of what’s happening around me in my comfortable little corner of the world. Whenever I do that these days, I seem to come away more alarmed at the things we collectively hold to be of value, and it leaves me concerned for our future. I wonder whether America will continue to be anything resembling a community or if it will finally and irretrievably degrade into a self-interested gaggle caught up in the day-to-day struggle of trying to make it in a dog-eat-dog, I-got-mine-you-can-damned-well-get-your-own world. I fear that our commitment to the social contract has frayed beyond repair and that we no longer see ourselves as our brother’s keeper, but as a free agent, beholden to and responsible for no one but ourselves. The ties that once bound us one to another seem to have frayed as our public discourse has decayed to the point where casting blame, hating those who are different, and fearing The Other have become dominant themes.
After listening to President Obama’s State of the Union speech, it seems clear to me that America is at a crossroads. One direction leads to blame, recrimination, intolerance, and religious tyranny, the other to an America in which we value one another for our shared humanity. Turn one direction, and we travel a path that leads to an America fueled by hatred, rage, willingness to blame others, and refusal to accept responsibility for our part in the mess. Head in the opposite direction will lead us into an American in which we recognize and celebrate our differences, we recognize we can rise together or fall separately.
I haven’t given up hope that we’ll choose a future bathed in sunshine over one cloaked in darkness, but sometimes I feel as if I’m spitting into the wind. As our collective discourse grows ever more dangerously anti-intellectual and angry, we lose opportunities to reaffirm that we’re Americans and we have far more in common than we do things that separate us one from another.
If someone drives you into the dirty gutter, it’s because you have given him your car key. Be careful of who leads you and to where and why…else, you will be taken away before you become aware! Be awake!
- Israelmore Ayivor
As I metaphorically put my ear to the railroad tracks, what I hear are the voices of those who blame, those who lay responsibility for [insert issue or problem here] at the feet of others who must be called to account for their crime(s). That those being held responsible may or may not actually be the reason(s) things aren’t as these Real Americans © believe they should be.
It’s hard not to look into the faces of Americans at a Donald Trump rally and see a willing acquiescence to creeping fascism. Listening to Ted Cruz leaves me fearing that “religious freedom” is merely code and cover for demagoguery and advocation of modern-day religious pogroms. There are far too many Americans comfortable with the idea of forcing their religious and political views upon Americans who happen not to live, love, think, and/or believe as they do. They’ve become so obsessed with what others do or think that they’ve lost the willingness and ability to look inward and take stock of themselves. Self-awareness has been sacrificed in the service of outward-focused rage, intolerance, and exclusion. Some Presidential candidates have demonstrated themselves to be demagogues ready, willing, and able to exploit collective discontent while lacking a positive alternative to offer.
Listening to other candidates, I frequently hear veiled cries for corporatism, xeonphobia, religious intolerance, and a stunning absense of compassion, and I wonder: Is this who we’re to become? Is this who we HAVE become? Are we looking at our future? Is what’s to come a world in which the emotions, fears, and prejudices of the masses are easily manipulable by those skilled in shameless demagoguery?
There’s an alternative, of course, and it’s readily available. The question is whether Americans are willing to do the work of thinking for themselves instead of meekly hating and fearing whom they’re told is to blame. Can we envision an America in which we pull together to find a better future for ourselves and our loved ones? Or do we give in to rage, prejudice, and demagoguery as Real Americans © take the lazy way out and blame The Other for all they believe is wrong with America?
I believe the President laid out a blueprint for what America could be if we choose wisely and err on the side of our shared humanity. Now it’s up to America to determine what happens next. I’ll continue to maintain a sense of optimism, even as evidence to the contrary continues to stack up. I still believe we’re better together than separately, and that we have far more in common than there are things which separate us one from another. The question is whether or not Real Americans © can, or are even willing, to do the same.
